Playoff baseball is back in Milwaukee. Let's stress out.
Breaking down the Brewers chances against the Braves and the rest of the field.
Happy Tuesday, fellow rich people.
In a fair world, we would have been allowed to enjoy a Game 163 yesterday between the Red Sox or the Yankees and the Blue Jays or the Mariners or maybe even multiple matchups between those teams. Instead, life is cruel. Instead of getting to watch the upstart Mariners or Playoff Vladdy, we get the real plucky upstarts, Boston and New York, in the Wild Card game.
Don’t get me wrong: in any other year, I would gladly take a marquee matchup like that in a single-elimination game. But don’t tease me with the specialty menu when all that’s going to end up being made by the chef is the same thing you eat all the time.
Alas.
Playoff baseball is back. Let’s stress.
Playoff picks
If we’re good at one thing here at Rich People Conversations, it’s predicting baseball.
It’s crazy but we didn’t get a single pick wrong in our first annual Opening Day Extravaganza.
*scrambles to delete all the files*
Totally joking. Some of our picks were laughably wrong. For example, I chose Francisco Lindor to win NL MVP. He had the worst year of his career. And none of us had the San Francisco Giants as a playoff team. They went on to win the most games in baseball (107).
But hey! We got a few right. Jake chose the Seattle Mariners as his bad team to make the postseason. They were in the mix until the final day. I threw a dart at the sky and named Joe Musgrove to be the first pitcher of the season to throw a no-hitter. He did it during the second week. And Curt predicted his puppy Moose would be a very good boy all summer long. He nailed it.
Anyways, it’s October baseball, my friends.
Let’s predict.
AL WILD CARD
Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees
Ahhh, we get the pleasure of watching the matchup of every Sunday Night Baseball game on ESPN once more in a win-or-go-home collision. “I wanna see frigging Nathan Eovaldi just pummel Aaron Judge and punish them.” - Our gal Schwartzy
RPC PICK: Yankees. Sorry Schwartzy.
NL WILD CARD
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
The Cardinals went on that 17-game win streak only to set up a one-game playoff against a $267 million payroll. Lol. Good luck.
RPC PICK: Dodgers
ALDS 1
Tampa Bay Rays vs. New York Yankees
A quick reminder that everyone thought the Rays were rebuilding after a World Series appearance in 2020. They traded 2018 NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell to San Diego. Instead of tanking, the Rays won 100 games and the AL East.
RPC PICK: Rays
ALDS 2
Chicago White Sox vs. Houston Astros
As a Twins fan, this won’t be a fun series to watch. I’d make a Houston cheating joke here but all of those are expired and belong in the trash can.
RPC PICK: White Sox
NLDS 1
San Francisco Giants vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
If both of these teams decide to wear their respective “City Connect” uniforms in the same playoff game, I will never watch baseball again. My eyes can only take so much.
RPC PICK: Giants
NLDS 2
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Atlanta Braves
I don’t care if Giannis Antetokounmpo has any exhibition games next week. The man has a new job now as a partial owner of the Crew. He better attend every dang game.
RPC PICK: Brewers
ALCS
Tampa Bay Rays vs. Chicago White Sox
We just tune in to White Sox games to see if Tony La Russa will try to run again. The man jogs like he just pooped himself in the middle of Mile 19 of the Twin Cities Marathon.
RPC PICK: Rays
NLCS
San Francisco Giants vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Jake and his wife will be renewing their wedding vows during Game 7. Sorry, Curt.
RPC PICK: Giants
WORLD SERIES
San Francisco Giants vs. Tampa Bay Rays
I can see it now. Ken Rosenthal is interviewing the World Series MVP. It’s former Twins outfielder LaMonte Wade, who was traded in the offseason for 8 2/3 innings on the mound by a guy named Shaun Anderson. What’s the correct spelling of Shaun? … Shawn? Sean? Anything but the latter. But, uh, yeah. San Francisco. It’s an odd year, though. Time to rewrite the narrative.
RPC PICK: Giants
Why the Brewers will win the World Series
~Curt
If you’re familiar around these parts, you know that I tend to load up the things I write with statistics aplenty. Most everything I write is, in some way, based upon some level of data.
But for now, throw that out the window.
Throw the last two weeks out the window, too.
My case for the Brewers winning the World Series isn’t based on any of that. It’s based on this: how many moments during the season did they have a “this team is special” moment? An instance that you just couldn’t quite explain? Something that left you sitting there saying, “Whoa.” And, in the context of all the other “whoa” moments, it felt like something bigger was in the works.
It started on Opening Day (sorry, Twins), carried over into an absurd extra-innings win over the Dodgers, a walk-off grand slam and a no-hitter.
If you felt at any point in the season that this Brewers team had that special dynamic to it, then why not feel it now?
They still have the pitching in which they can ride their horses or bring out a deep array of arms with no set roles. Their offense was significantly better over the second half of the season. They have a litany of guys with the ability to erupt and have a series to remember. Their manager is one of the best in baseball.
It would be malpractice for me to not mention the Brewers starting rotation in a section titled “why the Brewers are going to win the World Series.” I’m fairly certain my dog is even aware by this point that Corbin Burnes is good.
But one thing that will go significantly more unnoticed is that the Brewers grind out plate appearances. They don’t have the big boppers nor any individuals who will even sniff a Silver Slugger. But they are fifth as a team in pitches per plate appearance and, as cliche as it sounds, that matters in playoff baseball. An approach of staying in every at-bat, spoiling good pitches and making a pitcher work for every out tends to win out.
The draw for Milwaukee is favorable. The two best teams are on the other side of the NL bracket and the one with almost undeniably the best roster in baseball has to beat the hottest team walking just to face the team with the best record in baseball. The Braves will be a difficult out, but I don’t know anyone who would rather be facing the Giants or Dodgers right off the bat.
The MLB playoffs are a wild ride and more unpredictable than any other postseason in American professional sports. The team who wins is often the one who catches the most well-timed breaks. There’s no reason that can’t be the 2021 Brewers.
Why the Brewers won’t win the World Series
~Also Curt
There is nothing in life like having your insecurities shoved in your face. It royally sucks.
That is exactly what the last three days of the season were like for the Brewers. Sure, the games were meaningless and it could not have mattered less whether the Crew won or lost (unless you were the Giants or Cardinals, in which case it very much did matter).
But it’s one thing to lose a meaningless game. It’s another to get swept in a series where a behemoth lineup looks like a behemoth. For those watching from afar, seeing Trea Turner have 22 percent as many grand slams in a three-day period as Christian Yelich had homers all year felt awfully similar to that time I worked my way up for months to eventually squat 200 pounds a couple years back, then got a text from a friend about how he just squatted 450 like it was nothing. And, no, the entire point of this section of the newsletter was not to rehash the various feelings that made me feel, why would you ask?
The Brewers losses over the last week of the season mattered none, but they did point to a general feeling of “uhhh these are how stacked some of these other teams are?” It is not a great feeling.
Them not winning the World Series will have nothing to do with losing four in a row to the Cardinals two weeks ago in the same way that them winning would have nothing to do with a sweep of Arizona in June. It will have more to do with the Brewers simply not having a roster that was good enough to win series over three separate teams in the postseason.
The pitching speaks for itself, but all the questions surrounding whether the offense can produce in a short series are fair. Will the pitching have to be perfect in order to win? Because that’s asking a lot.
Who should the Brewers be afraid of in the NLDS?
~Jake
It’s a simple question. Every postseason series, there’s someone who rattles your bones before they even throw a pitch or before they even swing a bat. If you’re a Twins fan, it’s literally anyone in pinstripes. As the Brewers enter the 2021 postseason with an NLDS draw with the Atlanta Braves, the answer is a little less clear. If they were facing the Dodgers, that would be no fun but also easier to answer, even with Clayton Kershaw likely to miss the postseason.
The Braves, however, are quite different. They aren’t the 100+ game winners that the Giants or Dodgers are and they don’t have the divisional bad blood the Cardinals do. The Braves are just the team who somehow ended on top of a weird NL East division despite missing their best player.
Oh and about that, yeah, Ronald Acuña, Jr., isn’t walking out of that dugout anytime soon, so the Brewers can breathe easy there.
So, with Atlanta’s best player and best pitcher (Mike Soroka) out, who should the Brewers be afraid of in the upcoming series?
Freddie Freeman
This was the easy one. Freddie Freeman is the reigning NL MVP and followed up his spectacular shortened season with another gem, even if he’s not in the MVP conversation. He slashed .300/.393/.503 with 31 jacks, good for a 135 wRC+ and 4.5 fWAR. He started relatively slow this year, with the emphasis on relatively. In the second half, he hit .332, bopped 12 homers and walked more times than he struck out. He did all of this despite missing Acuña hitting in front of him.
One of the most admirable things about Freeman--and especially infuriating for those rooting against him--is he’s consistent.
Take 2010 away and you basically have an all-star level hitter every year, with only one huge uptick where he was the best hitter in baseball. And it doesn’t just apply to the regular season either. In 114 postseason plate appearances, he has a .364 wOBA, just 15 points behind his regular season benchmark.
Eddie Rosario and Jorge Soler
It seems like cheating to put these two together, but they belong together in so many ways. Both are outfielders better known for their bats who came to Atlanta at the trade deadline from crappy AL Central teams. Both have been quite hot since joining their new team, proving to be two of the savvier deadline pickups this year. Both are the kind of sneaky guys who could ruin a season.
Soler is probably better known of the two by virtue of leading the AL in homers (and strikeouts) in 2019. He’s a masher, there’s no way around it. He strikes out a ton but his prodigious power makes him exactly the type who could hit a blast when you’re least expecting it.
Soler in 94 games with Kansas City this year: .192/.288/.370, 13 homers, .289 wOBA
Soler in 55 games with the Braves: .269/.358/.524, 14 homers, .374 wOBA.
He’s practically been an all-star level player in Atlanta, peaking at the right moment.
Rosie is in the same situation, hitting six homers in his last 26 games with the Brewers. He’s the same guy who is allergic to walks and baffling outfield mistakes, but he’s found a hot streak with Atlanta, posting a .375 wOBA, well above his .295 mark in Cleveland.
Rosario is the kind of person who would terrify me no matter which team I’m rooting for, so he’s remarkably entertaining for the neutral.
Max Fried and Charlie Morton
I know, another combo. But hear me out. Fried and Morton both have wicked curveballs and are posting almost identical numbers this year and especially over the past month:
Fried over the last 30 days: 35 innings pitched, 1.29 ERA, 2.51 FIP, 16.3 K-BB%
Morton over the last 30 days: 34-2/3 innings pitched, 2.60 ERA, 2.56 FIP, 19.3 K-BB%.
If that’s not enough, Fried has a 2.57 ERA and 3.31 FIP this season while Morton is rocking a 3.34 ERA and 3.17 FIP in 20 more innings than his younger teammate. Morton, it should be noted, also has the best curveball in baseball according to FanGraphs. His weighted value of 27.4 is nearly double Corbin Burnes’ fourth-place bender.
They are both excellent and hitting their right stride at the moment. This isn’t like facing Jon Lester and JA Happ.
Christian Yelich
Uh. I don’t want to make this a big thing, but it ain’t been great. Yeli is in a downswing during a down season, which isn’t awesome when you’re facing Fried and Morton. He has just one bomb in the last 30 days and just a 75 wRC+. He hasn’t been the worst, though.
Omar Narvaez
I think he grounded into 42 double plays in the most recent series against the Cardinals. He’s completely lost at the plate, managing just a 4 wRC+ and has 19 strikeouts to two walks in the last 30 days. Others have been worse--Jackie Bradley, Jr., has somehow gotten worse in the last 30 days with a -31 wRC+ (!!!!)--but the backup situation isn’t the same. At least LoCain or Tyrone Taylor can take over for JBJ. I’m a longtime Manny Piña stan, but he’s not exactly who you want starting in the playoffs. I’m going to be watching Omar’s at-bats through my fingers.